A student has shown off his bizarre collection of street lamps.
Gabriel Nazário received his first street light when he was 12 years old.
He now buys them online.
The 21-year-old explained: “I’ve always liked street lamps for as long as I can remember.
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“I always looked at the lights and thought ‘Wow, I like that’.
“I didn’t know what to call them, but I knew I liked them.”
Gabriel – who is studying electrical engineering at university in Curitiba, southwest of São Paulo, Brazil – said he was given his first street light by council workers.
When he was returning home from school in 2012, he noticed some workmen changing the lights along his street.
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He immediately called his mother to come and take a look and she approached the workers.
Gabriel explained: “She went over to them and told them that I really like street lights.
“They said I could take one of the old ones home if I could name a certain part of the lamp.
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“I got it right and won it.”
Twelve years later, Gabriel now boasts a collection of 72 street lamps.
He told local media that he usually buys them online for around £29 (BRL 200), but also receives a large number through donations.
Gabriel said: “Some manufacturing companies send them to me so I can make a video about their street lamps.
“In some cases, they are old lamps I bought online.
“And I also apply to the city council for models they’re going to throw away.”
He explained: “I always look at the lampposts when I walk down the street, it’s as if I have a field of vision just for that.
“Once, there were five lamps in a warehouse that was going to be demolished.
“It took a year to find out who owned the land so I could request to buy the lamps.”
In 2020, Gabriel launched an Instagram and TikTok page dedicated to his unusual hobby where he now boasts 14,000 and 8,000 followers respectively.
He said: “On social media, I really like to talk about the issues of public lighting in Brazil.
“On my profiles, I create historical and technical content, mainly about the impact lighting has on the environment.
“I confess, I didn’t imagine it would be successful, it was always a niche thing.
“I ended up meeting two collectors in Minas Gerais and we even exchanged street lamps through the post.”
He added that he plans to create a ‘street light museum’ in his home in the near future, as reported by What’s the Jam.
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